Bashing Federal Workers Is Bashing The Middle Class

February 3, 2012

Isaiah J. Poole

On Wednesday the House voted to extend a two-year federal worker pay freeze an additional year. These workers, instead of getting a raise at the end of 2012, will have to wait until the end of 2013. (The House vote and our analysis is posted on our sister site, TheMiddleClass.org.)

The right-wing blogosphere is positively giddy about this, especially in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office study Monday that said that, yes, as a whole federal employees do get somewhat better pay and benefits than many of their private sector counterparts. “Federal Workers Overpaid, and CBO Agrees,” reads the Heritage Foundation’s blog, The Foundry. “Federal Workers Earning More Than Those Paying Their Salaries,” harrumphs Red State.

The right wants the rest of us to join the gripe session: “Look at all of those overpaid federal bureaucrats,” they say.

Well, let’s look at all of those federal workers—and what’s been happening to the rest of the workforce.

If you only have a high school diploma or perhaps a community college education, a federal government job is indeed a good deal, where you can earn significantly higher wages and benefits than you can in the private sector. Your wages will on average be 21 percent higher and benefits package worth on average 72 percent more. But those with advanced degrees are more likely to have higher total earnings in the private sector; on average workers with doctorates only receive 2 percent more in total compensation, only because a richer benefit packages help offset lower wages.

The CBO study adds, by the way, that “much of the higher benefit cost incurred by the federal
government stems from differences in retirement benefits,” with many federal workers receiving defined-benefit retirement plans and retirees receiving health coverage, benefits now rare in the private sector.

It’s worth noting what these employees are doing. One chart in the CBO report reminds us that more than a third of the federal workforce is employed by the Defense Department. Add the Department of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and the Justice Department, and that works out to about 63 percent of the federal workforce. Many of these employees are taking on responsibilities that require a higher level of skill than what is required in the private sector; it’s no wonder that a higher percentage of the federal workforce is comprised of people with advanced degrees than the private sector as a whole; and correspondingly a much lower percentage of the federal workforce is comprised of people with only a high school diploma.

The bottom line is that there is often good reason for some federal workers to earn more than some of us who pay their salaries.

But the even more important point is that those of us who pay their salaries should be doing better.

Last year the Commerce Department published a survey of private-sector employee benefits that showed that 36 percent of private sector workers did not have access to a retirement plan, 31 percent did not have access to a work health insurance plan, and 40 percent did not have paid sick leave.

That’s why private sector workers ought not be aligning themselves with the resent-the-federal-worker crowd. That crowd is not interested in you doing better. They are supporting the policies that are causing all workers to be worse off. What federal workers get in pay and benefits—and thus in overall income security—should be the standard for what all workers should be fighting to receive. Allowing conservatives to get us caught in their crabs-in-a-barrel game will only mean we’ll all be at the bottom of the barrel.

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About Isaiah J. Poole

Isaiah J. Poole is communications director of People's Action, and has been the editor of OurFuture.org since 2007. Previously he worked for 25 years in mainstream media, most recently at Congressional Quarterly, where he covered congressional leadership and tracked major bills through Congress. Most of his journalism experience has been in Washington as both a reporter and an editor on topics ranging from presidential politics to pop culture. His work has put him at the front lines of ideological battles between progressives and conservatives. He also served as a founding member of the Washington Association of Black Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.